evaluation

I was told that the interactive PDF was good in that it clearly followed the unit descriptor, gave enough activities and different types of activities, and was easy to follow in the topic areas.  It was considered interesting enough; not too easy and not too hard. I was also informed that my dozen or so checks on formatting, punctuation, etc., wasn’t thorough enough. 

I think that the content was good and knowing what I do now, it will be easier next time but I would do a better job with how I present it; formatting wise.  I think this is a good resource for in the classroom because students can follow through the classes with it and keep up if they cannot attend.  It is also not difficult to learn how to use it so most students in this class, Cert III community services, would be able to use it after a couple of classes with coaching from the teacher and their peers.  It will be best for those who have easy access to a computer with Adobe reader and internet access, although it would still work without internet access.

implement

I was surprised that even a “simple” thing like an interactive PDF was considered difficult to use.  Each person that trialled this needed information and some coaching about how to use it.  Once that was done they found it easy enough to use and worked through the PDF quite well.  I think they realised after a while that it was simply a different way of looking at, or doing, the same thing they are used to.

looking at the sky through the water



develop

Using resources I already had made this a bit easier than it would have been if I had to start something from the very beginning.  Designing the resource in this format was easy in that it started using a word document which I am familiar with but I wasn’t prepared for the fact that nothing could be changed once it was in PDF.  It took many attempts before it was ready to use in the interactive PDF format that I was content to be finished with.  The activities were also more difficult to implement than I had anticipated.  This is mainly because it was still new to me and I had to learn where to find the types of activities I would normally do in class on the net and then transfer them into the resource.  Once I figure out how to find and utilise each activity this will no doubt become much easier.

design

This phase was the “easiest” as the design was familiar to me as I had designed a similar resource in a word document.  The main difference here was trying to work out activities that could be used by students when they were away from the classroom environment.  As this resource was meant for students to use individually, at home, in class, in groups and in pairs, I had to think of the types of activities to use in all of these ways.

analysis

The beginning is often the most difficult part of any assignment but once I start I usually move through things quickly.  Analysing what type of resource to use was not as easy as I thought it should be as there were a number of things to consider.  Questions I had to ask myself were:  what resources am comfortable with or even able to utilise, what were the students in this group likely to be able to utilise, how would I be able to get the resource to students, what were their levels of comfort with using computers? 

In the end I chose the interactive PDF because I thought it would be fairly simple for me and the students to use, and be easy to transfer to a USB for students to use in place of a workbook.  It would allow students to keep up with class work when they were unable to make it to class, work individually and work in groups or pairs.  It seemed to allow for a reasonable amount of flexibility and to ensure that students could follow the work required for the unit.  It also meant that I would be able to utilise a number of the resources I already had for this unit.